Has U.S. Democracy Been Trumped? Bernie Sanders wants to know who owns America?
#341
Posted 2015-September-29, 14:34
The one column I read surmised that the resounding applause from the Repugs was because he was unable to completely kibosh Obama's agenda but I thought elections were to determine who is in charge.
What is baby oil made of?
#342
Posted 2015-September-29, 15:06
ggwhiz, on 2015-September-29, 14:34, said:
The one column I read surmised that the resounding applause from the Repugs was because he was unable to completely kibosh Obama's agenda but I thought elections were to determine who is in charge.
I'm torn. I think that Boehner was one of the worst speakers of the house ever.
With this said and done, I expect his replacement to be worse.
Until the Republicans are willing to give up on the Hastert rule and start marginalizing the far right, I fear that we are in for "interesting" times. Unfortunately, I don't think that's going to happen until they start losing some elections and its going to require quite a voter backlash to make up for the gerrymandering that is in place these days.
Right now, I have pretty much written off congress until 2020. Maybe 2024. Short term, the big thing that I care about is getting a Democrat in the White House in 2016.
Then we just need to wait for a Supreme Court justice to die.
#343
Posted 2015-September-29, 17:19
hrothgar, on 2015-September-29, 15:06, said:
With this said and done, I expect his replacement to be worse.
Until the Republicans are willing to give up on the Hastert rule and start marginalizing the far right, I fear that we are in for "interesting" times. Unfortunately, I don't think that's going to happen until they start losing some elections and its going to require quite a voter backlash to make up for the gerrymandering that is in place these days.
Right now, I have pretty much written off congress until 2020. Maybe 2024. Short term, the big thing that I care about is getting a Democrat in the White House in 2016.
Then we just need to wait for a Supreme Court justice to die.
Let's hope it is Scalia and not Ginsburg.
#344
Posted 2015-September-29, 19:40
#345
Posted 2015-September-30, 03:00
#346
Posted 2015-September-30, 07:49
y66, on 2015-September-29, 19:40, said:
Quote
“What you’re going to see is a conservative Speaker, that takes a conservative Congress, that puts a strategy to fight and win. And let me give you one example. Everybody thought Hillary Clinton was unbeatable, right?
“But we put together a Benghazi special committee. A select committee. What are her numbers today? Her numbers are dropping. Why? Because she’s untrustable. But no one would have known that any of that had happened had we not fought to make that happen.”
The truth at last: the Benghazi select committee was a Republican led political hatchet job organized to embarrass Hillary Clinton.
#347
Posted 2015-September-30, 18:32
Winstonm, on 2015-September-30, 07:49, said:
Well, maybe not the truth at last since the truth has been known all along. But yeah, what a blunder by McCarthy. The Republicans seem to have taken Pope Francis' encouragement to confront polarization quite seriously. Now they're all doing themselves in.
#348
Posted 2015-September-30, 22:30
y66, on 2015-September-29, 09:32, said:
I don't think any of the Republican presidential candidates would agree that racism is still a big problem or that there is still a tremendous need for a healthy dialog about racism like the one F.B.I. director, James B. Comey, encouraged when he talked about the difficult relationship between the police and African-Americans in February.
Comey's remarks were constructive and, IMO, a real sign of precisely the kind of leadership we need and seems to be completely lacking in these candidates.
We need to have healthy dialogs about a number of problems. I don't see these guys providing leadership on other problems either.
actually per my question...almost no one I repeat no one sees usa as a more racist country than their home country
If racism is a world wide problem in every country including yours ok...but that is not proof usa is a more racist country
I fully grant the usa has big problems....but racism seems to not be the biggest
per my posts in other threads I understand many believe the police and justice system are killing young black men ...murder them.
based on responses this belief seems to not be more than murder of people of color or others in their home countries.....
#349
Posted 2015-October-01, 00:01
Winstonm, on 2015-September-28, 09:38, said:
GOP blames Obama.
Of course they do.
I blame the Martians.
As for tv, screw it. You aren't missing anything. -- Ken Berg
I have come to realise it is futile to expect or hope a regular club game will be run in accordance with the laws. -- Jillybean
#351
Posted 2015-October-01, 02:07
mike777, on 2015-October-01, 00:42, said:
Don't be silly! Everyone knows the ice warriors are the real martians (and they definitely do not give citizenship by place of birth).
#352
Posted 2015-October-01, 02:14
Zelandakh, on 2015-October-01, 02:07, said:
again you do not qUOTE ME IN FULL.
but given all of that
I agree
aND THEY ARE WRONG AND I HAVE SAID THIS OFTEN VERY OFTEN
![:)](http://www.bridgebase.com/forums/public/style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)
#353
Posted 2015-October-01, 08:13
mike777, on 2015-October-01, 02:14, said:
Come on, Mike. When people quote you in full the CAPITALS DON'T FIT ON THE SCR
![;)](http://www.bridgebase.com/forums/public/style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)
Rik
The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds the new discoveries, is not “Eureka!” (I found it!), but “That’s funny…” – Isaac Asimov
The only reason God did not put "Thou shalt mind thine own business" in the Ten Commandments was that He thought that it was too obvious to need stating. - Kenberg
#354
Posted 2015-October-01, 08:27
mike777, on 2015-October-01, 02:14, said:
aND THEY ARE WRONG AND I HAVE SAID THIS OFTEN VERY OFTEN
The ice warriors are wrong not to give citizenship by birth? Strangely I do not remember reading this in any of your previous posts.
![:o](http://www.bridgebase.com/forums/public/style_emoticons/default/ohmy.gif)
#356
Posted 2015-October-02, 18:13
1) People do not vote in their narrow self interest
This is well known. There have been a ton of surveys done on it in the UK. The why is more interesting - most people see their country as more than a vehicle for their individual prosperity. It is some slightly anthropomorphic entity, and they want the country to do well. People have very different views on what that means and how to do it. I think the line of argument that "Republicans vote for policies which make them poorer they must be stupid lol" is both wrong and insulting. They vote for a republic party despite the fact that it makes them poorer because they think that the republicans will make America great again.
2) Polarisation arises when a polity has a substantial difference of opinion about the goals of policy, rather than the means.
If you want to understand why the American nation is so divided, start asking people what the ideal American looks like. Dollars to donuts if you start asking that dems will give some variation of a college educated, secular, career orientated professional. Republicans will give you something along the lines of the second Bush - a ranch owning, gun toting, self sufficient Christian. Republicans see the ideal American as the kind of 'get up and go' that characterised the Old West, where people made fortunes of the sweat of their own brow. This is really at the heart of Republican's indifference to education generally - their idol's didn't need it.
3) Conservative electorates view the Supreme Court as engaging in significant judicial overreach. And they are right.
What every student of political science learns is that divisive political issues require a political settlement with buy in from all segments of society. That's why, in Poland and Ireland abortions are Illegal, and yet they are still signatories of the Human Rights convention. Europeans understand that any attempt to force them into line with the rest of Europe is more likely to force them out the EU than it is to force them to comply. Multiple times in the last fifty years the Supreme Court has short circuited the democratic process, and that is a terribly dangerous system, because westerners broadly buy into the idea of democratic solutions. If abortion rights in the US had been decided at the ballot box, then there would not be the same level of vitriol that there is now in the US. Just compare to the UK? We have an equally large and vocal pro-life movement, but our politics are largely free of any stigma about it because everyone understands that if you want to change policy you have to get a majority of the people onside. If you can get the majority to change their minds then you should be able to change the law. There is no such understanding about supreme court decisions.
4) People tend to regard history as having a certain amount of inevitablity, whereas in reality it was often balanced on a knife edge.
This is basically a commentary on how democrats seem to view supreme court decisions. That because these decisions have repeatedly gone in a liberal direction, that was inevitable and really the only logical outcome. But that just isn't true. For example, european courts under very similar legal frameworks to US courts have sometimes/often taken a different view. For example, in the Gay Marriage case, the ECJ decided that the European Bill Of rights Article 12 - the one about marriage - did not apply to same-sex marriage because that isn't what the framers meant by marriage. So the ECJ took a different view and accepted as valid an argument which the supreme court of America specifically rejected as invalid. The supreme court could easily have decided, with echos of Roe vs Wade, that it wasn't for the Supreme Court to decide what marriage meant, and turfed it back to the states/federal government. Alternatively, the SC could have decided that actually they did have the authority to decide when life begins (which seems no less woolly a question than what marriage means!) and decided in 1960 that every conceived person was entitled to legal protections, then it would be the democratic party who would be rabid single issue voters. As soon as you short circuit the democratic process you end up with a system that lacks buy in from all segments of society. If your courts repeatedly decide things that are better decided at the ballot box then a polarised society is the inevitable result - just as much as if an autocratic leader keeps deciding things contrary to the will of the people, his government will be seen as illegitimate (which is how any number of european monarchs ended up with their heads on the chopping block!).
#357
Posted 2015-October-02, 19:00
#360
Posted 2015-October-02, 22:32
Zelandakh, on 2015-October-01, 02:07, said:
I strongly disagree, to not space ....babies born on mars will be martians....this is really important...you miss an important event in history
babies born on mars are martians
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